I wrote a post a few moons ago about shoulder rests and how to keep them from slipping. (Read about slipping shoulder rests here.)

Red Desert Violin reader Donny recently wrote in with his own excellent method to keep a violin shoulder rest from slipping. Ready for his miracle solution?

It’s velcro…at least one part of the velcro. The part that I use is the plastic barb (hook) material and is 3/4″ wide. I cut small pieces and stick each piece “across” the padded side of the shoulder rest until they cover the entire padded surface (about 8 pieces).

Objects that stick with glue usually eventually come apart and lift at the ends. So to keep each piece stuck at the ends, I went to Hobby Lobby and bought some small fabric eyelets and punched a hole in each end of each piece of the velcro using a leather hole-punch. Then I inserted the eyelets and snugged up the ends of the velcro using electrical zip-ties (found at Home Depot or Lowes in the electrical dept.) inserted through the eyelets.

Of course all the velcro pieces are cut, eyelets installed and zip-ties attached from the top side of the shoulder rest…it looks very neat and there’s no way for the ends of the pieces of velcro to ever come unstuck or lift up. Now the shoulder rest actually sticks so well that sometimes I have to hold down on my shirt to take the fiddle down from my shoulder.

The only possible problem (and I’ve not tried it yet) would be for ladies who wear delicate fabric, like satin or silk. Over a period of time the velcro might scuff up the material. One admonition; there’s velcro and then there’s velcro…I have 3 different types and none are the same. The heavy industrial type does not work well. I use the VELCRO brand…it’s 3/4″ wide and mine is on a 15 ft. roll. It’s called “Velcro brand-self-adhesive hook & loop for smooth surfaces”. There are 2 numbers on the box; 90083 and 202182…don’t know what they mean. I’m sure you can find it in a hardware store or go to the Velcro USA Industries website.

Thanks for the tip, Donny! Here is another view: